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AUSTIN — The Senate Higher Education Committee discussed the issue of campus censorship in the wake of a number of high profile incidents in other states. The discussion centered around a bill offered by Lakeway Sen. Dawn Buckingham, who is trying to reinforce state and federal constitutional protections for freedom of speech on college campuses. On some college campuses in other states, protests against controversial invited speakers have led to demonstrations, cancellations of events and even riots in one case. Buckingham doesn’t want that to happen here. “Our institutions of higher education have always been a place of learning and growing and the open dialog of ideas, even those we disagree with,” she said.

Buckingham’s bill, SB 1151, would require colleges and universities to develop public policies relating to freedom of expression on campus, and make explicit the right of free expression. Under the bill, students could not be punished solely for exercising their right to free speech. Members agreed with the sentiment of the bill, supporting free speech and the need for the college experience to challenge and broaden opinions and world views, but questioned if additional legislation was necessary. “If what you’re doing is trying to get the universities’ attention to free speech, I don’t think we need to codify that,” said Dallas Sen. Royce West. “I think we have adequate case law that deals with First Amendment rights.”

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With approximately 40 days remaining in the 2017 Texas legislative session, liberty movement activists gathered on Tea Party Day at the Capitol for a rally and citizen lobbying.

JoAnn Fleming of Grassroots America – We the People led a press conference of leaders from several liberty advocacy groups to call out legislators for not acting on the liberty agenda as laid out by the Republican Party of Texas platform.

Participants included: Terri Hall of Texas TURF, John Seago of Texas Right to Life, Aaron Harris of Direct Action Texas, C.J. Grisham of Open Carry Texas, Dana Hodges of Concerned Women of America.

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Texas isn’t commonly associated with corrupt union bargaining, but the state’s biennial legislature shows how much power public unions wield.

The unions’ formidable hold is in large part a result of a coalition government of Democrats and moderate Republicans who are more than willing to do union bidding. It’s a cautionary tale: “As Texas goes, so goes the nation.” If public-sector unions can obtain such power in the right-to-work, conservative state of Texas, they can do it anywhere.

For many sessions, Texas’s union-backed cohort has held conservative reforms hostage, making Republicans the biggest impediment to their own party’s agenda. This dichotomy leaves many taxpayer-friendly, pro-business reforms hanging in the balance: this includes ending government collection of union dues, reforming public employee pensions in two of the state’s largest cities, overhauling the abusive practice of civil asset forfeiture, and enacting legislation to allow for school choice.

In Texas, unions may not have the benefits that they find in states that aren’t right-to-work, but they can certainly still buy influence and use their tactics to advance their causes.

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Almost all Texas Republicans in the House voted to allow police officers to question children about immigration status during Wednesday’s heated debate on so-called sanctuary cities.

The vote was cast during debate on Senate Bill 4, which could jail local law enforcement officials who refuse to assist enforcing federal immigration law or enact such policies. Under the version of SB 4 that passed the Senate earlier this session, local law enforcement agencies are prohibited from enacting policies that stop officers from questioning detained individuals about immigration status.

The initial House version of the bill limited the scope of police authority, only allowing cops to interrogate about immigration status when individuals are under arrest. However, Representative Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, on Wednesday added the “detention” language back to the House bill.

Representative Diego Bernal, a San Antonio Democrat who called SB 4 “show-me-your-papers legislation” earlier in the debate, then attempted to add an exemption for children to that section of the bill.

Chamber’s version expands police power to question immigration status

AUSTIN — After 16 hours of often contentious debate, the Republican-led Texas House tentatively approved a sweeping bill Thursday that would require local sheriffs and police chiefs to comply with federal requests to hold onto individuals in this country illegally or face a misdemeanor criminal charge.

The House began a marathon debate on Senate Bill 4, or the “sanctuary cities” measure, around noon Wednesday and approved the bill on a party-line vote, 93 Republicans to 54 Democrats, at 2:58 a.m. Thursday. A final vote, which likely will break along party lines again, is expected later Thursday morning.

At issue is whether local law enforcement should honor every request by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold individuals in the country illegally until federal officials give further instructions or take them into custody. As noted by several of the bill’s opponents, the decision to honor ICE requests, known as detainers, is voluntary and Texas counties already comply.

In the most heated and prolonged moment of the debate, the GOP majority added a major change late Wednesday that allows police officers to inquire about someone’s immigration status during detainments, stripping earlier language that required an arrest.

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Caitlyn Jenner (formerly known as Bruce Jenner) has written his book, “The Secrets of My Life” and he is out promoting his book that talks about what he refers to as his “journey”. A journey, that he unfortunately, unwittingly drug along children, a wife and grandchildren along with him. I am not “mis-gendering” anyone here. Whatever Jenner, had surgically altered or consumes daily in the form of hormones does not change the fact that he is a man. Last night, 4/24/2017, one of FOX New’s most respected hosts, Tucker Carlson, had Jenner on as a guest. With the news out that this was a post-Sexual Reassignment Surgery interview; there was only one Tucker on this segment (har dee har har har). It was the most awkward of interviews in the history of interviews. Jenner’s appearance is daunting. Jenner can hardly close his right eye when he blinks and his lips are sideways. It is hard to tell if this is all a result of too many injections of Botox and fillers or a combination of plastic surgery and fillers. Regardless, it is completely scary. He looks like a transsexual Cyclops. His voice is an unmasked masculine voice. Many people do not realize that you do not merely take pills to change your voice; you must take voice training lesson to alter your voice. I would imagine that it is difficult to alter your voice at Jenner’s age. Jenner also still has the masculine size issues that many men have which prevent them from ever realizing the mirror image of femininity they desire and leave them depressed. Jenner has huge man hands and enormous wide shoulders. There is a reason he was such a great athlete, not only did he work hard, but he was built like an athlete. More on how he was built later. I don’t bring up his look to merely make fun of how Jenner looks. I bring it up to point out that transition is not a huge success, here we have a man with the means to purchase the best plastic surgery money can buy and he still appears awkward and this former Olympic gold medalist doesn’t even finish the race when it comes to accomplishing the look of a woman. That is why I bring it up. Many men who transition are left in limbo land as well, feeling never quite completely man or completely woman. Sadly, this is not often talked about by the community and it should be.

Beyond appearance and into the mind of Jenner, Tucker Carlson asked Jenner about his politics to which Jenner responded that he is a republican but he is not a one issue voter which is why he was able to vote for Trump despite Hillary being the obvious LGBT candidate. He thought that Trump appeared to be pretty good on LGBT issues. I would agree that Trump seems to be fair to the LGBT population. But now Jenner laments that he is disappointed with Trump over a few issues. Jenner criticized the administration for revoking the Obama administration’s guidelines allowing public school students to use restrooms and other facilities that correspond to their gender identity. Well, I think Trump was being reasonable here. Why can’t Trump be reasonable and still be fair to LGBT?

Jenner also complained that Jeff Sessions refused to prosecute some murders of transwomen as hate crimes. Wait a second, I thought Jenner said in this very same interview that he was a republican because he was for limited government but now a few sentences later he is for the feds stepping in to state investigations and declaring some murders “hate crimes”. Not every murder of a trans is a hate crime. Just because a person is a trans doesn’t make a crime against them rise to the level of a hate crime and it this is not equal treatment under the law to prosecute people differently dependent upon the class of the victim and the motives of the perpetrator. This would fall under premeditation, which would elevate the class of murder if it applies and that is where it should be left for the sake of equality.

While we are on murder, Jenner brought up Murder and “all the problems that plague the trans community. Here we go with the victim talk again. As if none of these people are successful people in their own right either before or after transition. Of course, we know better because there sits a shining example right there on the screen. If putting off transition is such a horrible discomfort and causes suicide then how did Jenner manage to become a decorated athlete and success story? He goes against the narrative which is why the trans community wants you to forget all about Bruce Jenner and focus entirely on the airbrushed image of Caitlyn and most of them do not want Jenner as a spokesperson at all, as they like to say “Bruce Jenner” is the “dead name”. I say that is the birth name and real name and Caitlyn is the now legal name and given alias. Jenner says there is a high suicide rate. There is a very high suicide rate indeed, even after transition. So, what that means is that transition is not an effective treatment. Now, people can do what they want, but don’t pitch this transition as something one has to do in order to stay alive. Don’t call people bigots for not going along with allowing men in women’s restrooms and changing areas and don’t say we just don’t understand and call us confused about gender. The people who are very sadly confused are the transgender and the LGBT activists. Most people in the USA have compassion for people who are confused but that doesn’t mean we care to accommodate men or boys in the female bathrooms and locker rooms.

At the very end of the interview Tucker Carlson asked about athletics and transwomen competing with women. Now to any logical person this would seem obviously unfair, but to Jenner this seems perfectly fair as long as some committee says the hormone levels are within a certain range. Never mind the muscle mass and bone differences that are different in a man and a woman. In sports a fraction of a second can make a difference in a race. A transwoman pumped up on testosterone just beat over 50 females in a row to take the title in Texas wrestling competitions at the high school level this spring. Some of the girls opted out of competing. That hardly seems fair. Women carved out a space for themselves to compete and now here come men competing in their space and there are delusional people in authority allowing it to happen. That is what is really a disgrace. It is not a surprise that some people are delusional and do things to comfort themselves, but for UIL and Olympic committees to go along with it is just more evidence that our society is putting its head in what I like to call a “transgender mind blender”. Let’s immerse ourselves in the truth, that’s the kind of culture we need to have.

The final word from Jenner was that he (remember that I use the gender that the good Lord assigned, not the one that has been reassigned in case anyone is confused) is fighting for the next generation. I want to ask you to think about that. Let that sink in. That should send a chill down the spine of every parent or grandparent in America. The LGBT agenda or more appropriately, the sexual agenda is being peddled in our schools, in media, and everywhere. It is even being peddled to children before they can read and write. Are you going to fight for the next generation?

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Democratic state Rep. Victoria Neave’s four-day fast to protest the bill to ban so-called “sanctuary cities” has drawn the attention of the legislation’s House sponsor — but it likely didn’t produce the reaction she was hoping for.

“I’m not doing that. I didn’t get to be a fat white boy by not eating,” said state Rep. Charlie Geren, the Fort Worth Republican carrying Senate Bill 4 in the House.

The bill, already approved by the Senate, is slated for a lengthy floor debate Wednesday. Neave, who last ate Sunday morning when she received communion at mass in Dallas, has vowed to not eat until it’s over.

“What I need to do is postpone it a couple days and see how hungry she gets,” Geren said, adding that he was kidding.

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Concrete crushing plants, which recycle concrete from demolished roads and buildings, can emit plumes of fine dust, worsening nearby residents’ asthma and other respiratory illnesses. On Tuesday, a Senate committee considered proposed legislation that aims to protect Texans, particularly communities of color near the facilities, from those health effects.

Concrete crushing facilities are already prohibited from operating within 440 yards of schools, homes and places of worship. Senate Bill 793, sponsored by Senator Borris Miles, a Democrat whose Houston district has six such facilities, would expand that restriction to include outdoor recreational areas such as parks and playgrounds.

“Community members at work and at play are exposed to particulate matter, which exacerbates asthma and increases heart attack and stroke rates because it carries pollutants that travel to the heart and into the bloodstream,” Latrice Babin, an environmental toxicologist at the Harris County Pollution Control Services Department, told lawmakers on the Senate Natural Resources and Economic Development Committee.

“This is a gruesome practice that has no place in decent society. We must do everything we can to protect young girls in Texas from being permanently disfigured as part of a misguided and cruel custom,” Nelson said.

SB 323 strengthens existing law regarding FGM, which is prohibited under Section 167.001 of the Health and Safety Code as a state jail felony.